All Diets Work if You Stick to Them

Researchers had volunteers eat diets that differed in proportions of carbohydrate, protein, and fat, and found that, while some were harder to stick to than others, all of them worked.

A new diet study just out from the American Journal of Clinical Nutritionwent to a lot of trouble to prove the obvious. When it comes to weight loss, how much you eat matters more than the proportion of fat, carbohydrate, and protein in your foods.

Some people find it easier to stick to diets that are higher in protein and fat. I'm guessing that proponents of low-carbohydrate diets will argue that none of the diets in this particular study was really low in carbohydrate.

But studies show that people have a hard time adhering to diets that are very low in carbohydrate. The low range in this study -- 35 percent -- is at the lower end of acceptability for many people.